Fissures
by theroguesgambit
Summary: There are moments when Charles realizes that Erik is too scarred to truly heal.  That their relationship is strained nearly to the point of breaking.  This is one of those moments. One Shot


**Fissures**

"You know what I've been thinking?"

The question came as an abrupt interruption to their quiet chess game, which had become the sole focus of his attention for nearly the past half hour. It had become a form of escape for Charles in the past weeks – these stolen moments where he could lose himself in the simple mechanics of the game, in the voiceless sacrifices of pawns and rooks, in the enjoyment of strategizing and planning where hundreds of lives didn't hang in the balance. That had become something of a luxury, these days.

It took an effort of will to pull his attention away from the peaceful stillness of the chess pieces, and back up to Erik's thoughtful eyes.

"At the moment?" He replied dryly, shifting in his chair and resting a hand on his chin. "No."

A flicker of a smile darted across Erik's face, and Charles grinned back, unreasonably pleased with his own reply. He rarely had to read Erik's mind to know what the other man was thinking. He, like Raven (well, like Raven up until recently, anyway, before she had become defensive and secretive and started blurting out confusing rants with startling regularity) was surprisingly expressive. When he was angry Charles didn't have to _feel_ it. It was right there in his eyes, in the way they went cold and empty and dark. If he felt sorrow he wouldn't hide the tears, and if he was happy – in those rare, shining moments when he felt something resembling hope or joy – his face would light with such surprise and wonder that it made Charles' heart ache to see him so astonished by the simple feeling.

Happiness was a new emotion to Erik… or at least one that he hadn't really encountered since childhood, and Charles knew that even after the few weeks with the other mutants at the facility, and now his time here at Charles's childhood home, the other man was still in a constant state of shock over the fact that he wasn't alone anymore. He wasn't some anomaly, some singular freak with strange powers, as he had supposed his entire life. And Charles took every opportunity possible to remind him of that fact.

"Well, would you like me to tell you, Charles, or would you just rather find it yourself?"

"I don't go digging through my friends' thoughts without permission, Erik. You know that."

And there was another smile now, one that was less happy but still deeply fond and a perhaps a little amused. Sometimes Charles wondered if everybody could read Erik's expressions like he could, or if being good at deciphering facial expressions was just an aftereffect of growing up seeing them while feeling people's corresponding emotions. It was true that people tended to be surprised when Charles guessed what they were thinking, but maybe the rest of the world simply paid less attention than he did.

"You think that's naïve of me." Erik raised a brow at Charles's swift evaluation, but didn't deny it, fingering his black knight idly.

"I think if you have an advantage that powerful over those around you, you might as well use it."

"And what gives me the right to search through your mind, or any mind, without the permission of the owner?"

The other man's teeth gritted, his eyes averting to the nearby window as if wishing to somehow escape the conversation of his own making. His eyes had gone dark again, troubled, the peace and the humor vanishing beneath that heavy veil of pain and anger that had shielded him his entire life until now.

"It's not that I disagree with the sentiment," he responded slowly, grudgingly, as if each word troubled him deeply. But he wasn't the type to back down from a hard situation, even if it was just an ethical debate with a friend.

But then… it was never "just" anything with Erik, was it? He lived as if every moment, every decision he made, was life or death. That kind of drive, that kind of deliberately honest living, was one of the things Charles respected most about his new companion, but at the same time he was starting to realize how exhausting every moment must be for him. So he waited patiently for Erik to dig out the words he was looking for.

"But Charles, not everyone is as good or as honest as you. There are a thousand people out there who will smile and lie through their teeth, just waiting for the moment they can take advantage of your trust to destroy you. And it's not exactly as if we are living in peaceful times. You have the power to see the enemies coming, before they give themselves away, before they even give you reason to suspect their friendly faces are lies."

"You can't live your whole life in a constant state of mistrust."

Erik's eyes flicked back to him, and it didn't take a telepath to see the fatigue there.

"It's what's kept me alive all this time."

"Do you call what you've been doing 'living'?"

The amused smile had returned to Erik's face, but the fondness that had once accompanied it was starkly absent, and creeping up in its place was a hint of bitter defiance.

"We're on the brink of war, Charles. _Again._ Survival is all we can hope for."

"No." How had this quiet evening become so charged so quickly? "We can hope that humanity has learned from the mistakes of its past. That they will know better than to put a few twisted madmen in power-"

"You're such a _child_." The snarl struck Charles like a blow, his mouth snapping shut and his head twisting to the side instinctively as though he'd been struck in the jaw. "What do you know? Your family fled Europe. You grew up here in this great, protected paradise and watched clips of the war on the evening news if you could be bothered to stop playing games and… _reading books_ for long enough to pay attention. You didn't lie awake in the night remembering the rumors of your own people just disappearing off the streets, you didn't get dragged onto a train one morning by smiling people telling you that you were just going to be temporarily relocated and it would all be ok. You didn't feel those same people tear you from your mother's arms as you were callously sorted away from her like cattle too young for the slaughter. You didn't-" He cut himself off sharply, his stance rigid and his expression just short of murderous. Charles realized belatedly that the metal clasps on the window had bent and twisted together, warping the glass to the point of shattering. Erik uttered a sharp curse in German, his eyes squeezing shut and his breaths coming out ragged as he forced himself to regain some measure of control.

"You talk about a 'few twisted men'. You didn't see the pleasure in the eyes of the guards who starved us and beat us, and even the ones who didn't smile, didn't openly delight, they showed no hint of sympathy. People use the word 'humanity' as if it means empathy, or brotherhood. But so many humans, Charles, are just savage creatures looking for a target to focus their hate on."

His eyes slowly drifted back open, his expression – like his tone – having calmed somewhat toward the end of his rant. But, barely perceptible, the window clasps were continuing to twist in on each other. The frame shifted and bent ominously.

Charles's own lips tilted up sadly, as he turned his gaze back to his struggling friend.

"Not simply a human fault, I'm afraid."

There were moments – just seconds, really, just flashes – of insight that would strike Charles during times like these. That would make him want to bowl over, to curl up and weep with sheer desolation at the utter certainty of the future stretched out in front of him. The knowledge that Erik and he were such different people, that there were some scars that would just never heal.

That some people born into a world in turmoil, raised in the heart of the darkest side humanity has to offer, would never be able to rid themselves of their need for war and bloodshed. If you've grown up without the simple luxuries of peace or love or trust, then lies and deception are all you'll ever see, fear and hatred is all you'll ever know.

When he saw Erik in these moments it was as if he were pressing his hand against a wall of impenetrable glass, as though he were reaching fruitlessly across a chasm that could never hope to be bridged.

And then Charles's unfailing optimism would flare back to life and the spark of insight would retreat, fade into a dull and distant glow. Erik would push back that simmering anger and offer a vaguely apologetic smile toward the twisted window frame. He'd make some comment about needing to train more lest all of Charles's hapless furniture suffer from his bad temper, and the chasm wouldn't seem so great a gap.

Lessons learned in childhood could be untaught by new information. Erik had lived his whole life alone with his scarred memories, but now here he was, learning slowly to trust. Once he spent time here, once he started to know what it was like to be accepted, to have friends who would love and stand by him, that hatred that filled his whole world would eventually start to fade.

Erik huffed out a soft breath, his eyes going to the window, his mouth twisted ruefully as he took in the damage to the frame.

The glass was straining. A few of the edges had started to crack. And despite himself, Charles found his attention being drawn to the damage as well. Perhaps he _had _read too many books growing up, if something like window glass was beginning to seem like a metaphor for his life, but he indulged himself for a moment, imagining that window to be the wall between himself and Erik. Perhaps the simple fact that Erik was opening up to him, felt safe enough to argue and snap and show his pain this way, was a sign that the barrier between them was already beginning to break.

But that distant spark at the back of his mind couldn't help wondering if the glass wasn't a representation of the barrier between them, but of their friendship, itself. How long could their alliance be strained, bent and stretched by their opposing ideals? How much pressure could be put on it by Erik's iron-hard prejudices, Charles's unbending beliefs, before it shattered altogether?

Erik ran a hand through his hair and shifted his gaze back to the chessboard, assessing his position before choosing his knight and using it to check Charles's king in one deft move. Charles slid his king to the left, and so their quiet game went on.

And over at the window, fissures continued to form.

**~Fin~**


End file.
